Why Instructional Time Matters
But time keeps flowing like a river (on and on)
To the sea, to the sea
’til it's gone forever… At least that’s what the Alan Parsons Project suggested in their hit song. But poets and songwriters aren’t the only ones seemingly consumed by the passage of time. Educators frequently talk about the concept, discussing “time-on-task,” school start and end times, and the length of the school year. What

Thanks for lives past and present
crossposted from Daily KosI was, perhaps appropriately, listening to a recording of the Brahms Requiem when I saw the email: Greg Kannerstein had passed away. Let me quote two paragraphs from Haverford College President Steve Emerson's ('74) email: A mentor, student, teacher, colleague, coach and friend to thousands, Greg recently stepped down from his role as our Dean of the College after a

Creating a Democratic Learning Community
is the focus of a new book by Sam Chaltain, National Director of the Forum for Education and Democracy. Sam previously worked with the First Amendment Schools Project, an experience that helped shaped this book. He is also founding director of the Five Freedoms Project, which is a community educators, students and citizens committed to First Amendment Freedoms, democratic schools, and the idea

Be More Than A School Administrator...Be An Innovation Coach
I have an idea…"It will never work.""We don’t have the budget to do it.""It will take to much time and we just don’t have any to waste.""The district won’t like it.""Teachers won’t want to do that.""That isn’t the way we do things at this school.""What does that have to do with test scores?"These are just a sample of the typical answers we in education hear when we have an idea. Don’t scoff to

The Pulitzer Center -- Relevant Learning, Authentic Engagement
by Jason Flom, Ecology of EducationWhere do you point your students for news? Fox? NBC? NPR? NY Times? CNN? When you want something a bit different, something less corporate, where do you look? Media Matters? The Daily Show? Indy Media? Rush? Huffington? Crooks and Liars? What if you want ground-breaking, objective, mixed media journalism with a global perspective, that creates connections and